They Crossed the Country With a Dream of Manhattan and $800,000 to Spend

1 month ago 11

Esteban Selaya and Veronica Pessino in Manhattan, near their new co-op apartment. After moving from California, the couple had been renting a one-bedroom in Hudson Yards.

Living in New York had long been a dream for Veronica Pessino, but something — usually school or work — always kept her in California, most recently in San Diego.

Two summers ago, Ms. Pessino, now 34, took a trip to the city and realized she couldn’t hold off anymore. She wanted to make the move. “I have felt at home in New York since I started coming to New York when I was 18,” she said.

“It’s now or never,” she recalled thinking.

The tricky part: She also wanted Esteban Selaya, whom she had only recently started dating, to come with her. And he had never been to New York City.

“I realized that we’d been dating for nine months, and I was asking him to move across the country to a place that he’d never been, so I would have understood if he didn’t,” Ms. Pessino said. “But I wanted him to come.”

[Did you recently buy a home? We want to hear from you. Email: thehunt@nytimes.com]

That fall, the couple came for a closer look: dinner at a jazz club, a stand-up show with his favorite comedian, world-class pizza. He was sold.

“It’s a big decision,” said Mr. Selaya, 33, who had lived in Southern California his entire life and works as an engineering manager for Toast, the restaurant-management software company. “I kind of figured maybe I should try living somewhere else. And then, somewhere also so different.”

In 2023, they drove across the country with their three cats — Hyperion, Zeus and Kuzco — and landed in an Airbnb studio on the Upper East Side. From there, they found a one-bedroom rental near Hudson Yards, but after learning that the rent would soon increase, they started looking for a new place.

Buying wasn’t in the picture until Ms. Pessino, who has a doctorate in biophysics and is a founding partner of the data-analytics start-up Plinth, began helping a friend look for listings online. As a lover of the arts, she homed in on the Lincoln Center area, crunched the numbers and realized that buying was an option.

After an initial visit to a listing — Ms. Pessino pitched it as a date to Mr. Selaya — she jumped into “overdrive” and contacted the agent who was helping her friend.

“Veronica and Esteban were amazing clients, not only because they were super motivated, but they were organized, they were moving quickly,” said Connor Cuccinelli, an agent with the Noble Black & Partners team at Douglas Elliman. “And it just led to a super-simple transaction.”

The couple set a budget of around $800,000 and planned to split the purchase. They wanted a place with at least one bedroom, a dishwasher, no carpeting and space for the three cats, in a relatively small, quiet building. Also on the wish list: an open floor plan with an updated kitchen that had a gas range, as Mr. Selaya likes to cook, and proximity to Central Park.

Among their options:

No. 1

This one-bedroom co-op was in a nine-story building near Central Park. It had an updated bathroom and an open kitchen with a breakfast bar and a stainless steel countertop that caught Mr. Selaya’s eye. There were hardwood floors, beamed ceilings and picture molding. The bedroom had French doors that opened into the living room, which wasn’t ideal because the couple both work from home and need separate spaces. The asking price was $799,000, near the top of their budget, with monthly maintenance fees of around $1,700.

No. 2

This spacious one-bedroom co-op near Amsterdam Avenue had abundant natural light and great views. There was ample storage and a “gorgeous” kitchen, Mr. Selaya said, with a breakfast bar. But they could hear street noise even with the windows shut, and French doors separated the bedroom and living room. The 29-story building was farther from the park and had unattractive carpeting in the hallways, but it also had a full-time doorman and a roof deck. The asking price was $750,000, with monthly maintenance fees of around $2,200.

No. 3

This charming one-bedroom co-op was in an ideal location, three blocks from Lincoln Center on a tree-lined street off Columbus Avenue. The couple liked the coziness of the 10-story building, which had prewar features and nice floors throughout. The kitchen, however, was separate from the living space and needed renovation, as did the bathroom. The asking price had been reduced from $750,000 to $685,000, well within their budget, with monthly maintenance of around $1,800.